A LATE MEDIEVAL PORTUGUESE FRAGMENT OF CASSIAN'S COLLATIONES

Abstract

this article presents a comparison between the common text of two 15^th century manuscripts that contain a part of John Cassian’s Collationes, the most important work by this author. One of the manuscripts is kept at the National Library of Portugal (Alc. 386); the other is a fragment that belongs to the National Museum of Archeology, in Lisbon. The results of such comparison, based on a conservative transcription, enable the observer to reflect upon whether each document witness conveys its own translation or both contain a common translation (despite bearing some variation). This analysis is developed according to state-of-the-art knowledge about innovations made by medieval scribes.